The Cudeca Foundation has announced the results of its 2013 accounts which have a positive note, thanks to the income generated from the sale of properties and inheritance. These funds, when added to the income received mainly from the cancer care organisation’s chain of charity shops, amount to a total figure of 3.29 millon euros with the year’s outgoings calculated at 2.9 million euros.

The good financial news came on Thursday with a further announcement: a change in the leadership of Cudeca, a decision made by the president and founder of the charity, Joan Hunt, due to her increasing “problems with mobility”.

Staffing changes

Ricardo Urdiales is the new president of Cudeca, at the same time as Susan Hannam has been named as the vice-president, with both receiving 100 per cent of the votes from the board.

The pair have both been part of the cancer palliative care charity since its inception in 1992, as founder members working alongside Joan Hunt and all those who have formed part of the Cudeca ‘family’ .In his inaugural speech Urdiales emphasised that “this change is not a replacement or a substitution because Joan will continue with her project to facilitate one of the basic human rights we have: the right to a death with dignity”.

Susan Hannam said she was grateful for the trust in her shown by the members of the foundation and for all the staff who form part of the group and who are “those who make this project possible”.

The announcement of Urdiales’ and Hannam’s new positions within Cudeca was the central focus for an event dedicated to giving information to all those administrations, collaborators and members of a society based on offering quality of life to terminally ill patients.

The event served to reiterate that the principal source of funds (826,956 euros) is still sales made in Cudeca’s charity shops, as has been the case in previous years - there are 12 of these at the moment and the objective is to open a further two this year in Malaga city - along with 671, 520 euros collected from the sales of properties and inheritance left to the foundation.

An agreement with the Junta de Andalucía’s health department and funds received from fundraising events also form part of the income received this year.

As far as expenses are concerned these have been contained through staff salary cuts, which reduced annual expenses by eight per cent.

Medical and psychological programmes aimed at both patients and their families take up the majority of these expenses. In the last year, the organisation was able to attend to 100 more patients who had been derived from the public health system, or who required care in hospitals or private homes. Patients are also cared for in the foundation’s own hospice in Benalmádena, as always without charge.

Recognition

Thursday’s ceremony ended with the presentation of Cudeca’s gold insignia, an award that is given every year to an organisation that has been collaborating with Cudeca over a long period of time. On this occasion the award went to La Caixa’s social project that started to support the cause in 2003 and continues to support Cudeca, raising awareness around Spain. The foundationcalculates that La Caixa has helped raise around a million euros over the years.

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